


Providence in Retrograde

by galimau, Oceanbreeze7



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alex Rider keeps breaking things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Before I break your hearts, Canon-Typical Violence, De-Aged, Developing Friendships, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grand Theft ALEX, Home Alone: Ecuador Edition, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Nosebleed, Oops, Pickpockets, Russian Roulette, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life, What's that? A GUN! NO, Yasha is confused, Yassen Gregorovich Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:45:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galimau/pseuds/galimau, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oceanbreeze7/pseuds/Oceanbreeze7
Summary: "Can you shoot a gun?" Alex said, impatiently holding the flaming Molotov a tad tighter.The boy- Yasha he had said, looked pointedly from the shattered plastic remnants of the chair he was tied to, to the rope bindings he had literally burned off, to the unconscious guard he had beaten with a (now) broken Waterford Crystal vase."Cahn you?" Yasha challenged, critically surveying the Molotov in Alex's hand.And yeah, that was pretty fair.ORApparently Ecuador was nice this time of year. Lots of waves, good Tuna fishing, yearly Evil-Maniac-Convention which somehow now involved immortal tortoises and the key to everlasting life.At least Alex gets to steal a motorcycle, and a boat, and an entire island and an equally insane Russian Boy who (maybe) will set the world on fire.





	Providence in Retrograde

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes about continuity - _Providence in Retrograde_ is set a few years into the future in an alternate reality where Eagle Strike never happened, because SCORPIA recognized that dropping several nuclear missiles across the globe was a bad plan, acknowledging that an irradiated world with its major cities crippled was a bad plan for keeping an active crime business up and running. As such, Alex at sixteen has been on several miscellaneous missions for MI6, with only minor involvement with SCORPIA. Ark Angel and Snakehead, Alex’s closest brush with SCORPIA in this universe, occurred with slight modifications, as did Crocodile Tears. Otherwise, Alex has been kept busy as usual by MI6 on a variety of missions that involve the usual number of lies, explosions and dastardly plots.  
> I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed working on it. Kae, you’re a delight and it was an honor to get brought on-board. I can’t wait to keep writing with you. - Galimau

He came to with an ache pulsing through his skull. Deep ringing, like a blow across the temple that had hit all the weaker points.

There were people shouting, screaming. That high pitched wailing that continued unbroken- he couldn’t comprehend why anyone would let themselves scream so freely.

There was a familiar sort of ache across his skin. His head pounded- all of it, inside and out. He could tell nothing was broken, but his face burned hotly like a backhand glancing across bone.

It had been a long while since he had been bound like this, hands tied behind his back. The bite of rope was still familiar in a hateful way. 

His vision cleared slowly, and only then did he recognize that the room was burning.

On fire only slightly: one of the wide draperies hanging from high above was ablaze. The room was large, ornate like many of the rooms he knew and had cleaned. His chair was on a stage, slanted for a theatre audience. Why was he on the stage? Why was he bound to a chair for an empty auditorium? 

The last he knew, the manor didn’t have an auditorium. Especially one with such garish colours. It looked like it had been painted by hand, sponge based patterns that mimicked historical Mediterranean villas more than any style native to Moscow. There wasn’t any gold leaf, and the mouldings along the windows looked like they had been sculpted into plaster- not made of wood.

_ ‘That’s ridiculous,’  _ he thought, unable to stop the garbled moan of pain as his head thrummed agonizingly,  _ ‘how do you clean plaster?’ _

The heat on his face increased, another reminder that the room was, in fact, on fire. An assumedly new development, since the high ceiling was just now darkening with soot. 

He had to get free- he wasn’t going to just,  _ sit there  _ as the building burned around him. He had no idea where he was, had no idea where to go, but if  _ that man _ was going to finally kill him, it wouldn’t be with fire.

He stirred, shifting slightly. The rope bit deeper into skin, wet and congealed from where he had bled. He wouldn’t free himself that way- but the chair had potential. It was cheap, metal and folding. He couldn’t imagine... _ him, _ hauling such an eyesore out in public. Generally such weak furniture stayed low and out of sight in the basement. 

He jerked to his feet, lurching forward dizzyingly. He wasn’t sure if his head was bleeding- but the way the world seemed to adjust so slowly suggested some sort of head wound. He felt like someone had pummeled him, but no broken bones this time. He was healthy enough to escape, and had just figured out how.

The room was on fire, and his bindings were rope. It was simple logic. 

He flipped the chair, craning and jerking it against one of the plaster pillars. It took a bit of effort and slurred swears before the cheap manufactured bolts popped free- the chair crumpled apart into two equally sized pieces of metal. Legs bound to one chunk, hands bound to another.

He approached the burning curtains, cautious of the spreading fire now licking at the carpeted floors and wooden skeleton of the walls.

The flames hurt, blistering hot and biting into his skin. It took careful twisting and maneuvering to jam his wrists into one curtain- burning merrily, and sear off only the coarse rope.

The rope fell free, his wrists bled anew. The burning cloth was a thought worth considering, but closing a wound with fire was reckless when he could find bandages once he discovered where he was. Why he was taken here- he had been doing everything  _ right. _

Someone burst into the room behind him - standing higher up due to the slope of the amphitheater, running out from behind column of plaster and wood. The facade looked Greek, or maybe all amphitheaters were designed in such a way. He hadn’t seen enough to know.

The man looked like a bodyguard, all thick skin and square body. The way his eyes glared down at him solidified that impression - all threat and violent intent.

He felt his lip curl slightly- this man’s outfit did not match the guards and servants he knew well from the estate. 

It was likely, given the situation and the chair, that he had been taken. Being stolen was likely, but even more so was the potential that he had been sold. Cast aside, bartered to a nameless higher bidder.

He refused to accept that fate. Not again.

The room was on fire, and he was not a fool to misuse the opportunity.

He lunged, grabbing the back of the chair that his arms had been tied to. The metal was thin, easy to warp under high pressure. 

It warped like he’d expected, caving under the high pressure of the guard’s  _ skull. _

“Hah,” he barked, unable to stop the sense of delight at his success. There wasn’t time for more celebration than that small noise. The room was still burning- thick clotting smoke like a room filled with cigarettes. Worse, worse than the smoking rooms of the estate and more painful to his eyes.

He had no shoes, nothing but loose trousers and a shirt too large for him. A poor outfit and badly sized, it would earn him something cruel if he was spotted in such unsightly garb. It was a good thing he had full intentions of escaping, otherwise he may have succumbed to the cruel blows anyways. This time, he had decided to fight back.

If not now, then when would he? Sold to some unlikely bidder- a precious good lost in transaction. No, not even that. Nothing precious at all. He was just another body made to scrub a floor, but  _ no longer. _

He jerked the thick door at the peak of the amphithere open, eyeing the short balcony of now broken glass. Had there been gunfire? Was this estate under siege?

Another man was shouting, rushing up the stairs but unable to see upwards. His alignment was perfect, in place just enough to assure an easy assault if he so desired.

An ornate vase was resting on a nearby dark wood table. The table wasn’t sturdy, but he had polished and cleansed enough fine crystal to know the brand and know it well. Waterford was thick, durable. Easy to wield and fast to fall.

He plucked the orchid blooms from the top, splashing the water behind him needlessly. Such a small quantity would do nothing to prevent the fire from spreading. His main priority was the guard running up the steps, a rifle slung over his shoulder carelessly.

The vase dropped, the man shouted and went limp. 

The path was clear, so he swung his legs over the short broken railing and let himself drop down.

It was painful, the landing, but it would spare him time. Moments where he could run and escape  _ somehow _ \- in the back of a car, through the burning walls. He would not stay here,  _ never again. _

Someone shouted just up the hallway- the direction the man had come. He ducked lower, snatching the largest shard of the broken vase and contemplated stealing the rifle from the limp man’s back. It would take too much time to free it- he didn’t know how to use such a long gun. Foreign make, not what the guards carried. Nothing like the hunting rifles of his childhood, either.

He was measuring his chances for escape with the gun or the remnants of broken crystal when he heard footsteps, fast and light.

His head snapped up, wary. It was another boy that raced around the corner, not looking any older than him. Equally confused, equally seared by the fire. His clothing looked...different. Odd, a servant garb but...not correct? Had the boy  _ stolen  _ the outfit for some unknowable reason? Had he tried to break in?

His eyes dropped and spotted the bottle in the other boy’s hands, burning on a candle wick and  _ ah,  _ that made more sense.

* * *

“The hell.” Alex blurted in surprise, unable to stop himself. He was  _ positive  _ that there were no more servants inside- they had all evacuated the moment the fire alarms went off. Even then though, the oversize clothing and the slowly bleeding drips from the boy’s hand suggested something more sinister. And crueler.

“Who the hell are you?” Alex barked, holding the Molotov a bit tighter. He was planning on heading up to the displaying amphitheater to see if he could find trace of where the new megalomaniac had run off to- he was too busy making sure the drawbridge (really? _Really?_ ) had busted down to make sure that the literal _tank_ couldn’t get out of the parking garage. This new guy had arranged a convention of _Horrible-No-Good-Awful-Bad-Inventions,_ a sort of show-and-tell for the villainous egos of the world. His chosen name was equally gaudy, _D’Marcus._ Never trust a villain with _two_ consonants in his last name. Not one, but the peacock had to go and think _‘Well, I’d really love another capital letter,’_ and claim a perfectly good apostrophe as a hostage. At this point, Alex really should have been demanding higher wages. Or wages at all. Join a union, get in a support group of _‘Wow I Hate MI6.’_

The boy’s eyes narrowed, his posture hunkered down a bit more over the unconscious goon. He clutched something thick and glass in his hand- did part of the railing survive?

“Whho...ahr you?” The boy asked, guttural and airy at the same time. A foreigner- which Alex had  _ expected  _ but it was  _ Ecuador.  _ The Russian accent was surprising, to say the least.

“Uh, Alex.” Alex found himself blurting, shifting his sweaty grip on the lethal explosion. “So, uh, is there anyone else upstairs? Big, mean, goes on a lot of rants? The evil villain type?”

The boy paused, clearly processing Alex’s nervous jitters. When the guard groaned slightly, the boy absentmindedly kicked his head and knocked him out again. “Up? Ahh- no...man. Sleep.”

Alex blinked a few times quickly, trying to understand the butchered English. “Asleep? You knocked a man out upstairs?”

The boy nodded slowly, hunkering more protectively with his glass. “Yehhs.”

Alex paused with a frown, “What’s your name?”

The boy paused before he managed a significantly smoother Russian sounding name Alex knew and hated-

_ “Fuck,”  _ Alex hissed out sharply, body going taught as he glanced around, “he’s  _ here?  _ Okay, kid, we’ve got to go now. Look, Yassen is bad- very very bad, uh, what’s the word-plow-key?”

The boy blinked, baffled before he corrected it with a distant sounding,  _ “plokhoy.” _

Alex nodded, glancing down at the guard’s gun. “Okay, your name-  _ name.” _

_ “Yahshah,”  _ the boy bit out slowly, fluid and smooth. Distinctly Russian and easy to remember with the rhyme of the pre and suffix.

“Okay, Yasha, come on.” Alex jerked his chin at the downed guard, “can you use a gun?”

Yasha paused, processing the question. Alex tried not to fidget. They were running low on time and the makeshift firebomb in his hand was burning through the fuse.

"Can you shoot a gun?" Alex repeated, impatiently holding the flaming Molotov a tad tighter.   
The boy - Yasha, he had said his name was - looked pointedly from the plastic remnants of a chair still tied to his legs, to the rope bindings he had literally burned off, to the unconscious guard he had beaten with a (now) broken Waterford Crystal vase.   
"Cahn you?" Yasha challenged, critically surveying the Molotov in Alex's hand.   
And yeah, that was pretty fair.

* * *

The boy- Yasha, was….surprisingly competent. Well, it was  _ rude  _ to imply that everyone else  _ wasn’t  _ competent, but in Alex’s experience there were normally only two types of people in the firing zone. The first tended to be the people screaming, throwing drinks and dramatically screeching about useless things, like the price of shoes or how leaping out of windows wasn’t  _ safe;  _ and then the other type of person Alex met usually was, you know, the people  _ shooting at him. _

Yasha was different, because he was...somewhere in the middle. Already, the boy fell in line behind Alex (keeping an eye on his back, making sure he didn’t turn around to try and punch him out or leave him behind). Yasha was a weirdly fierce shadow, wielding a brass lamp in one hand carefully, unflinching even as gunfire pierced stucco walls a floor above them.

“They don’t know where we are,” Alex said, feeling the need to explain at least a little. The urge to ramble was savage, he had to consciously cut back on the chatter considering Yasha likely couldn’t comprehend nervous chatter in English. “If they find us, they’ll kill us, so you have to be quiet.”

Yasha’s expression didn’t shift. Alex really hoped he understood what he had just said. If not, this was going to be a really painful escape attempt.

Gunfire came again, still above them but drawing quickly closer. At this rate, they would be ambushed before they could find a way out. Normally Alex would consider stealing a car, or jumping out a window to try and vanish into the crowd, but with the bright daylight and sweltering heat outside he wouldn’t be able to hide long before his foreign looks betrayed him.

More shouting, repeated call for names. Alex realized quietly that the guard in this section was likely trying to check in with the guard Yasha had crystal clearly knocked out.

“Shit. C’mon, this way,” Alex hissed, using one arm to try and herd his new ward into a side corridor- likely one leading to washrooms of some sort. They could maybe use that, if they found the laundry room they could maybe escape through the shoots there, or whatever plumbing they used.

“Whvat-,” Yasha paused, his gait not shifting in the slightest as he stumbled over English. Alex couldn’t help but wonder if the boy had ever met a native English speaker before. “ _ What  _ are they shoot for?”

“It’ll take too long to explain,” Alex shushed, casually throwing the last remaining Molotov behind them to turn the ornate rug into more of a bonfire. The guards may be used to near lethal heat, but they clearly weren’t insane enough to run through actual fire.

“Ah,” Yasha said, his face shifting for the first time from its careful formal mask into something disgusted. “They ah...they shoot us, da?”

“Well, I’m sure they want to, like, castrate me at this rate. I have a bad habit of messing with international threats to humanity-”

Somewhere behind them, a wall collapsed with an ear shattering roar. The ground vibrated under their feet.

“- and I destroy a lot of buildings,” Alex confessed.

Yasha didn’t seem surprised. He adjusted his grip on the brass lamp, eyes scanning the hallway ahead of them for movement. Already, he was better backup than half of whatever idiots Alex had tagging along with him normally, formally trained or not.

“Escape, da?”

“Yeah, I’m thinking the laundry-.”

“Nyet.” Yasha cut him off sharply, flinty and tense, “washing ah, nyet. Food-...kutsheen? Kutshyen?”

“Take your time, we’re only running for our lives,” Alex consoled, almost snickering at the aggravated expression on the boy’s face. 

Movement flickered in the corner of his eye and Alex tackled Yasha against the wall.

A mere moment later, gunfire rang through the hallway- the downed guard's friend had found them.

“Shit.” Alex swore under his breath, using his forearm to make sure Yasha was pressed against the wall securely. The bronze lamp in his grip nearly fell in his surprise at the sudden change in position. 

Yasha blurted something, a gruff low sound that was without a doubt, some sort of curse. Alex would have to learn it, it sounded like something satisfying to scream as he leapt out of an airplane. Again.

“Shut up,” Alex demanded, eying a nearby side table. An empty decorative porcelain pitcher on a plain silver tray. He snatched it, hurling the pitcher through the air across the hallway neck. A hail of gunfire- but none managed to hit the jug itself. It didn’t particularly  _ matter,  _ since it was  _ just a jug.  _ It did mean that whoever they were fighting was a lousy shot.

Yasha started squirming against the wall, looking particularly displeased with Alex’s arm bruising his sternum. Alex couldn’t take time to try and explain, since you know, they were actively being targeted by an international terrorist organization. Rather than wasting words, he grabbed the silver tray from the table.

“Where are you?” Alex muttered, trying to get a decent reflection angle to see the gunman. It didn’t completely work, but he hadn’t anticipated it to. He saw it once in a movie with Tom and he had always been  _ dying  _ to try it out in real life. If MI6 wasn’t going to send him in with actually good supplies (nothing personal, Smithers) then he was going to mock their supposed super secret spy skills by ripping off a cheap movie. 

Yasha, of course, had not seen the movie and did not appreciate this moment of creativity from Alex. In fact, Yasha was looking quite peeved with the rough treatment. He spat something else before he dropped to the floor, sliding out from Alex’s grip.

“Hey- stop!” Alex hissed, tempted to smack him with the silver tray. Yasha ignored him, baring his teeth in an angry snarl as he danced backwards towards the way they came, vanishing around the corner.

“And there he goes.” Alex spat frustrated to himself. He had been in worse situations, but this one was certainly crummy. And now Yasha, his supposed Russian princess in distress had run off inexplicably.

“You have aim like a zitty teenager in an arcade!” Alex shouted at the guard, voice going hoarse slightly. He had choked on a bit of smoke earlier. The gunman shouted something in Spanish, hazy through the high pitched whine in Alex’s ear.

“A bad teenager!” Alex continued, trying to think on his feet. “Like the ones who mooch the bloody foosball-.”

Alex paused, glancing over with a sharp inhale. Someone else was coming down the hallway Yasha had run off to. If Alex had to go and save  _ one more hostage- _

“Oh,” Alex said. “That’s...smart.”

Yasha emerged, looking a tiny bit seared and a larger bit irritated. His eyes were red rimmed- wet from smoke. Under his one shoulder he had a dozen paintings, decorative pretty things with sharp cornered frames. The other hand was wielding a broken chair leg and what looked like the remnant of a curtain. On fire, but they were in Hell, so fire was just the aesthetic of the day.

“Da,” Yasha grunted, using one sharp elbow to shove Alex to the side this time. “Back, Hamburgor-boy.”

Alex floundered, half in confusion and half in indignation. He had been called many things, but the random Russian sneer of  _ Hamburger-boy  _ cut surprisingly deep.

Yasha jerked one of the paintings out from under his arms, pausing and trying to line something off. With a snap of his wrist, he hurled it around the corner like the world's largest shuriken.

A violent projectile of still life fruit and picnic baskets.

The makeshift torch burned, sending more wafts of smoke through the hallway. The paintings were made from tightly bound cotton canvas- they burned well.

The gunner had anticipated Alex, but he had not anticipated flying sharp burning paintings to come into focus in his sights. Surprisingly, paintings were unaffected by bullets.

It wouldn’t  _ stop  _ the man, but it would give them the opening to sprint across to the other side. Hopefully there, they could find a way out.

They ran, Yasha snatching up the thick brass lamp-stalk again. The gunner shouted more Spanish, too fast for Alex to make out in the confusion, and began rushing down the hallway to chase them. Alex already was trying to figure out how to lose their sudden tail.

Yasha evidently thought things through faster, because he spun on his heel and shifted his grip slightly. He swung the lamp-stalk around hard enough that it collided with the man’s collarbone with a sick  _ crack. _

He dropped, and Yasha grabbed his gun, staring at it with a small twitch of his nose.

“You can’t aim that, can you?” Alex said, not bothering to be hopeful.

Yasha huffed and dropped the gun like it was trash. They had to keep moving.

“Kitchen.” Yasha said suddenly, looking proud for the briefest of moments. “Kitchen, Alec.”

“It’s  _ Alex,”  _ Alex snapped, “and we don’t have time to get a snack.”

Yasha ignored him, and took the lead, picking hallways apparently at random.

They did run into more guards, but they were much easier to deal with now that Alex realized Yassen was competent. Alex took one guard out by twisting his arm and slamming his boot into the man’s knee. He felt the tendons snap under his shoe, and something about the sensation told Alex the man wouldn't be walking again for a long while. 

Yasha instead threw his entire body at the other guard, using the weight of his bones and thin frame to take the man by surprise. Wrapping his fingers around the man’s throat, swinging his sharp knees to again and again into the soft spots that ribs didn’t protect. Intestines and liver and maybe a spleen, if Alex remembered biology lessons well enough. Yassen didn’t stop kneeing, didn’t stop clawing with a feral intensity until the man was choking and his eyes rolled back in his head. Legs flailed instinctively, hands twitching but useless.

“Let’s go!” Alex shouted, half tempted to haul the other boy off the clearly incapacitated man. “Yasha! Now!”

Yasha reared back, sneering down at the man before he gave one more kick to his side. Alex could recognize a grudge when he saw it. He suddenly felt very very mad with the international terrorist organization he had just set on fire. “Eternal Youth” Alex’s left ass-cheek, he was going to smash this place to the  _ ground. _

“Kitchen,” Yasha grunted again, forcing Alex into a compact room. The industrial fridge and stove were easy to spot. The countertops and clean steel made the room feel more like a hospital than anything hospitable. Alex wondered how many people had been poisoned by this room. How many people had died from food sent out from here?

“Go. We go,” Yasha repeated hands fumbling with the industrial garbage disposal system.

Alex stared and tilted his head slightly. The garbage chute wasn’t large- it was made for the smaller bags instead of the massive ones Jack always made him haul out at home. It would be tight; a grown man couldn’t fit inside. That was why Alex had overlooked it as a possibility, but Yasha hadn’t.

“We go,” Yasha stressed again, eyes flickering around the kitchen quickly, “feed...tunnel.”

“Feed tunnel, okay,” Alex said in acceptance, the adrenaline making the sentence sound terribly silly in his ears. “Let’s bloody feed the tunnel then.”

Yasha looked at him pointedly, and Alex felt his throat tighten. If Yasha was a spy or working for D’Marcus and this was a weird twisted trap, then Alex would be sliding feet first into his likely end. On the other hand, Yasha had been playing ultimate Frisbee on fire. 

“Okay, fine.” Alex said, forcing the big slot open. He couldn’t see the bottom, but the metal was cool to the touch. The fire hadn’t spread down below, so the escape was still open.

Yasha watched him, making sure Alex could fit the thicker bulk of his thighs into the chute before he took a protective position to cover their escape. He had a butcher knife in hand, one of the large pointed ones used for chopping massive vegetables. Alex couldn’t help but pity the poor sap that stumbled in on them. Russians were apparently ruthless- two prime examples now came to mind.

Alex’s shoulders slipped past the hatch with some wiggling, then he was sliding down the metal. It smelled badly, some areas were sticky and the large bolts tore at his hair. The worst water slide in the world, and the chute seemed just as unhappy with his presence as he was to ride it.

It spat him out into an oversized dumpster where Alex landed in a pile of cloth bags, some soaked through with what smelled distinctly like rotting meat. Or tuna bits. Alex didn’t care.

He slapped the metal twice, trusting it would rattle all the way up where Yasha was standing guard. A moment later the chute vibrated, then Yasha slid out clumsily into the trash and almost physical stench of the dumpster. He had much less difficulty maneuvering into the passage, his frame thin and lankier than Alex’s.

Yasha struggled to his feet, managing one step before his entire body recoiled. A full body shudder, wide eyes in undisguised shock.

Alex spun, searching for any sort of guard they missed. There wasn’t anyone there, just a big metal dumpster in an Ecuadorian alley as the building behind them burned dramatically.

“You okay?” Alex asked, eyes scanning Yasha’s exposed skin for any injury. “Were you hit? Are you bleeding?”

Yasha reached out to grab the dumpster, swallowing thickly. He looked almost in shock, peering around with wide blue eyes. His skin seemed so pale in the sunlight, hair nearly see-through. Alex realized with a lurch that the boy looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in a long time.

“It…” Yasha trailed off, voice wavering slightly in a strange warble. “Hot, sunny.”

Alex blinked  quickly before he nodded slowly. “It’s...hot. Yes, but we were literally just inside a  _ burning building.” _

Yasha, still looking a bit faint, made a very quiet inquisitive noise.

“We need to move,” Alex explained hurriedly, hearing sirens wailing from not too far away. “Get away from here, then we can recover and figure out what to do next.”

“Yes.” Yasha agreed, taking his sweet time to step out of the dumpster. The grime clinging to him didn’t disturb him, instead the sunlight itself seemed to shock him into stillness.

Alex hated that twist in his stomach, that little rising sense of disgust that some- some  _ monster _ had likely kept Yasha inside for… years? Yasha looked straight up into the sky like it was something beautiful, to be prized, eyes wide with amazement and watering. 

Yasha took a few steps, grimacing slightly at the rough pavement. Yasha didn’t have shoes, or anything that could pass as shoes. Alex’s boots were literally build to endure him and his stupid decisions. They’d have to hide somewhere fairly quick, but the city of Manta was large and filled with many many people. It wouldn’t be that hard to slip away, not when they managed to make some distance from the burning building.

“Come on, let’s go.” Alex said. Yasha looked at him, eyes flickering over Alex’s body before they rested on Alex’s offered hand. Slowly, Yasha reached out to grasp it firmly, calluses rough and streaked with blood from the weeping rope burns around his wrist. Alex thought that Yasha’s hands felt worn, and cold.

“Da,” Yasha said, “Ale- Alex? Spasibo.”

Alex knew enough Russian to smile at that.

* * *

Alex liked to imagine that he had a certain set of skills. A set of skills, that could thwart death threats, tackle megalomaniacs and win, seduce chaos and take her for a spin in a stolen Ferrari. These skills got Alex to where he was today, namely, where he had very smoothly stolen a bicycle cart and was now desperately peddling down a packed street with Yasha hidden under the back canopy clutching the railing for dear life.

The poor kid looked more baffled than anything when Alex walked up and casually stole the bike. It wasn’t even a great sneaky maneuver, he literally walked up and climbed on. Yasha thankfully in his dazed state of shock had climbed in silently. The owner of the bicycle stared at him, outraged or impressed by the sheer audacity of Alex stealing his  _ bicycle  _ in broad daylight.

Now, Alex was not Russian, or an assassin, or an asshole. But, if he  _ was,  _ he could see why there was a strange delight in casually waving at an innocent pedestrian as you drove off into the sunset. It wasn’t a helicopter, but, baby steps.

Yasha clearly made this little pained noise, something mixed between confusion and shock as Alex waved. The owner of the bicycle, overwhelmed with stunned confusion, waved back.

They were a few blocks away, far enough that Alex could squint over his shoulder and see the dark smoke but no longer hear the sirens as piercingly as before. Yasha, his precious little babushka, was slowly trying to crawl forward from the back of the cart. Wobbly and unsure with where to put his knees and hands.

“Careful there,” Alex warned between heaving breaths. His shirt was high quality to prevent getting stabbed, but it didn’t cool him down so Alex considered it  _ completely useless.  _

It was almost ironic how he hadn’t sweated until he was outside and under the sun. Already his mouth was itching for water and his eyes stung. Although, that could have been the smoke inhalation and the possible internal burns. You know, tiny things like that.

Yasha made another small noise, a subconscious sound of distress as the blonde ivory idiot tried to peer out from the shade.

“Get back in there,” Alex scolded, letting his legs rest as they coasted around a curb. He used the opportunity to reach back and fling droplets of sweat on his little precious passenger. Alex deserved a tip after all this effort. “You’re going to burn your vampire skin off.”

Yasha made a small noise of confusion, muttering under his breath clearly in confusion. 

They kept going, for miles. Alex’s legs felt like jelly, and not the good sort. Despite that, the salty sea air was slowly increasing, it would be a welcome relief from the oppressive heat of the sun. 

“Okay,” Alex spoke, more to himself than Yasha. He coasted, the gears in the dingy bike ticking as they slowly shifted down into a slow crawl. A few other pedestrians watched him move by, but lost interest just like everyone always did.

Alex hit the breaks- pausing in annoyance as he found they were broken. Of course they were, it was a good thing they weren’t in a dramatic car chase. Then again, any sort of dramatic chase when Alex was steering a passenger bicycle would be if he was being hunted by a...police force on tricycles. Or a unicycle, or those stupid looking three wheeled motorcycles.

They slowed, crawling until the gears locked and they rested at a standstill. The kickstand was actually a piece of rebar, but that summarized Alex’s life so truly he couldn’t even be mad.

“Okay, snow angel,” Alex panted, his shirt and pants clinging to his skin. He was going to be aching tomorrow from desperate biking. “You fine back there?”

Yasha blinked, wide eyes half hidden from the shade of the canopy. He looked even more...frail. Thin skin, translucent in the sunlight. Wide eyes that seemed like they’d burn in the sunlight. Even his hair seemed thin and clear like fishing thread. 

“You look like a Pomeranian.” Alex blurted, then chewed his tongue. He was very thankful that Yasha did not know English.

Yasha’s eyebrows furrowed slightly as he glanced around, still trapped in that odd dreamy state he had been displaying ever since they came out of the garbage chute. His fingers twitched as they wrapped around the hot metal supports of the carriage, tracing the thin canvas reverently.

“What’s up with you?” Alex asked. He ran a hand through his hair, knowing that the strands were sticking up stupidly with how sweaty he was. “Are you okay? Seriously.”

Yasha opened his mouth then closed it, swallowing thickly. He kept looking around, eyes locked on the tall square buildings and the muted pastels of the stucco.

“Where…?” Yasha said quietly. His voice trailed off, but for once Alex was sure it wasn’t because he didn’t know the words. Something about... _ this  _ had unnerved the boy far too much. He was looking at Alex like he had accidentally broken everything Yasha knew.

“Uh,” Alex said smartly. “Ecuador?”

Yasha’s face twitched slightly, his wide blue eyes stared at Alex, then through him.

“Uh, shite.” Alex grimaced, running both hands through his hair now. “Do you know other languages? Uh, francais? Espanol?  Deutsche?”

Yasha’s eyes sharpened slightly, but even then it was very little. His mouth shifted, flickering over words thickly before he managed a garbled confirmation in Spanish. Worse than his English, more foreign on his tongue.

“So you know Spanish, but not the  _ country  _ Ecuador?” Alex couldn’t help but ask in surprise. “You know, South America? The  _ continent?” _

Yasha looked to the side, his eyes drifting and pausing over the sea. He looked contemplatively over the ocean, searching for something Alex didn’t know.

“Ecuador.” Alex repeated, “you’re not in Russia. You’re across the world. Do you even  _ hear  _ me?”

“Nyet Rossiya,” Yasha said, eyes unbreaking from the ocean.  _ No Russia. _

Alex paused, and nodded slowly. He had thought that Yasha wasn’t understanding, but now it seemed different.

Yasha swallowed, thickly. Alex could see his throat convulse oddly as he forced his muscles to work. Yasha hadn’t stopped tracing the cheap canvas, lost in thought.

“Moskva,” Yasha said, “Moscow.”

“Around the world,” Alex told him. “You’re across the ocean. The Pacific Ocean.”

Yasha nodded very slowly, inhaling deeply. 

“Da,” Yasha confirmed quietly, “not ah, not Russia. Not...Not have go past.”

Alex unscrambled the butchered grammar easily. “You haven’t left before. Have not left before.”

Yasha nodded slightly, an ever so slight nod of his head. Alex swallowed thickly, feeling much more overwhelmed. The city of Manta was large, bustling with music and voices and diesel engines. He felt very small, a thousand miles from home.

Alex started pedaling, not sure where they were heading, but knowing they couldn’t stay so close to the smell of smoke.

* * *

 

Yasha had been locked up. Alex knew that, he could see it in the small unspoken moments between them. The way Yasha was constantly on guard, how silent he walked and the dozens of glances he threw the darker shadows. Alex felt strangely guilty that the only ally he found competent was one who had gone through some sort of horror himself.

Alex learned quickly that Yasha was also  _ ridiculous. _

Either it was the heat or the sunshine, both luxuries Yasha wasn’t familiar with, but the boy was near insatiable for stupidity. Alex had done his fair share of bad ideas, but Yasha was peeling at the scabbed wounds on his wrists with a single minded focus. He was like a dog, chewing at a tick-bite.

“Stop that,” Alex scolded him, smacking the boy’s side with the back of his hand. “You’ll make it worse.”

“Nyet,  _ you  _ make it worse.” Yasha countered sullenly, ignoring how his wrists bled anew. Alex would have offered his shirt to bind the injuries, but his shirt was saturated so thickly with sweat it would likely burn worse than salt water.

Alex sighed, reclining against the bike’s carriage. It offered protection from the midday sun, so hot it cast waves from the melting tarmac around them. Alex could have cooked bacon on the road, he didn’t know how Yasha was surviving in this weather.

“We need to find somewhere better to stay.” Alex summarized, smacking Yasha again. Yasha smacked him back, smearing sweat along Alex’s own damp skin.

“I don’t think breaking into a house is good, since we’re wanted criminals.”

“Nyet,  _ you  _ wanted.”

Alex tried not to snort, but he was unable to stop the small smile. “Fine fine, since  _ I’m  _ wanted. We still need supplies, and a place to stay. Hidden and out of sight.”

Yasha snorted, looking at Alex with a small hint of irritation. “Long- large? Large automoboles. Automobiles.”

It took a moment before Alex could comprehend, he blamed the heat. “What, like a semi truck? A transport truck? You want to  _ steal  _ one? Can you even  _ drive?’ _

When Yasha smacked him again, Alex felt that somehow, he deserved it.

“Stupid!” Yasha spat out irritated, “sleep!”

Oh.  _ Oh,  _ that...actually wasn’t a bad idea. Transport trucks generally  _ did  _ have huge beds built into the cabin, to accommodate the truck drivers that had to operate at unusual times. Alex didn’t know about the transport route through South America, but he  _ had  _ seen a few of the trucks passing by on the roads. Worst come worst, they could camp out in the back of a transport hauler until the police stopped looking for them.

They eventually found one, a semi-truck unit in the back o a chain linked section of a clothing company. The truck was likely privately owned by the brand, dark purple with the carefully painted words  _ Telas des Estellas,  _ as well as little star designs. Alex had to hand it to the little company, the near rhyme was cute, as well as the detail the little clothing store put into its brand. It didn’t look that well off- the parking lot cracked and empty with the windows dark and smudged. Likely going through an economic crisis, unable to fund more stock or supply. 

The back of the hauler had rusted wires where it would connect to the shipping container, it hadn’t been used in some time. There wasn’t even a guarantee that there would be a bed or other supplies  _ inside  _ the truck, but from what Alex remembered there was generally space above the driver's seat to accommodate overnight stays.

Sleeper cabs, or something. Alex hadn’t thought much about them- trucks in the UK were very different than other semi-trailer trucks around the globe. This one looked more like an American style truck, which almost always had ridiculously large beds last he remembered.

“Okay, here.” Alex tapped the metal twice, knowing he’d have to climb up the little step ladder to get inside the cabin. “I’ll crawl under- they have the mats and stuff. I can likely punch through and come up through the floor.”

Yasha lifted one eyebrow, eye skimming the car with a slightly perplexed look. These trucks were likely much larger than the ones in Moscow as well.

Alex dropped to his back, wiggling under the truck slowly. The accumulating sweat in the arch of his spine drew in dirt- creating a mixture of mud tampered only by the thin cotton-explosion-proof material of his shirt. He could see a few of the pipes he recognized, the fuel line and the long since rotten break lines. The truck had likely been here for years, it would be useless to try and start it up. 

He wiggled a bit further, trying to get around some of the thick metal piping. A bit further-.

“Alex...” Yasha said, voice thick and slurred but steadily clearing around his second language. Alex ignored him, focused on trying to find a way into the truck. A second later, a hand grasped Alex’s exposed ankle to haul him out from under the truck, dragging him back out into the sunlight.

“Oi!” Alex barked in surprise, scrabbling to get his leg back, “watch it, I had-.”

Yasha wasn’t entirely able to keep the amused curl from tilting his mouth upwards. His eyebrows had lifted slightly, eyes brighter with mirth. 

The truck driver’s door was open, bisecting the sunlight shining over Alex’s face.

“Is unlocked.” Yasha said, voice flat and measured but even then Alex nearly smiled at how stupid he now felt.

“Well,” Alex licked the sweat off his lip, hating the salt of it. “Hop on in to the Old Volks’ Home.”

He could see the second it took before comprehension hit, because that look of pure disappointment was more glorious than being shown up for not trying the door handle in the first place.

Yasha hopped in first, his entire body tense and cautious as he lingered in the door. He reminded Alex of a cat on the prowl, slowly scenting out a new environment before leaping in.

Although the cabin was shaded, the heat filtering through the windshield made it sticky and unbearably hot. Yasha flinched, a small noise of discomfort unraveling deep in his throat. He kept pawing forward, over the dusty steering column to the other side. His thin frame slipped between the seats easily, moving over the console to vanish in the back section of the cabin.

“Clear,” Yasha called back, muffled slightly from the bulk of the seats. Alex climbed in after, opting to keep the drivers door open in a desperate attempt to get some sort of draft through the stuffy interior.

Alex found Yasha in the back, sitting comfortably on the bare bones of an old mattress. No blankets or sheets on the small twin sized bed- it fit horizontally against the back of the driving cab. The truck had definitely been left for dead.

“Is nice for sleeping.” Yasha confessed, eyes flickering over the dark slightly dusty cabin with a small frown. “You, ah,  _ exhausted.” _

It took Alex a second before he connected the dots. He couldn’t prevent the visceral flinch back, the noise of pain. “Oh my god you  _ didn’t.” _

Yasha was smiling. He most certainly  _ did. _

* * *

__

They were gifted in mind, but not in coin. The heat was savage, their accommodations more so. They needed supplies and even in the darker edges of civilization, Alex knew where to find them.

Yasha remained behind to rest, sprawling out on the bare mattress that looked so large on his thin frame. Alex wasn’t ignorant to how the scabs on his wrists kept oozing blood, only formed a few hours ago. The boy had been through a lot- Alex remembered the first time he had been overwhelmed with adrenaline only to crash close after. Yasha needed his rest, even in a foreign country in the back of an abandoned truck cab in stifling heat.

Alex didn’t have any money, but he did have determination and a little crow brain that made him spot shiny things and fluttering coats and fabric. Like in most hot climates, the locals put their clothing out to dry in the wind. Bright floral patterns, muted pastels that had once been new and vivid. Soft cotton, slightly shrunken from being washed by hand over and over again. Alex felt a bit bad stealing anything that looked well loved, so he stooped to snatching towels drying on metal railings overhanging the alley ways. The owners would likely assume they had flown off in a strong wind, and curse their luck. The clean towels had no salt, which was the most Alex could hope for with no funds to buy medical supplies. He doubted the wounds on Yasha would heal cleanly.

He made his way back to the truck, weaving between tangled streets and shouting bicyclists. He nearly got hit by one van, loaded with crates overflowing with produce. Alex shouted hoarse apologies in Spanish, already sprinting off his the towels and stolen clothing. The heat was simmering now, slowly lowering as the late afternoon sun reduced its angle and descended towards the coast line.

Manta was a fishing city, famous for various international tuna producers. Canneries that spread shipments all around the world, and the many blue-collar labourers that helped. When Alex had helped Yasha recover enough, his best chance was to sneak onto one of those massive fishing boats to see if he could somehow convince the crew to….chase down wherever his target had gone.

“Dammit,” Alex muttered angrily. Cursing himself for his inability to complete yet another stupid mission MI6 threw him on. “Bloody figures.” At least he had been informed  _ very briefly  _ that the man of the hour liked touring the Galapagos. If Alex was lucky, maybe he’d be able to see some of those finch birds he had to study in school. 

The truck was where he left it, still looking plain and unassuming. The driver’s door was open, but obscured by the way it was parked. When Alex made his way around the cab, he saw Yasha’s legs hanging out from the driver's seat, the smaller boy basking in the blessed cool air finally descending over them.

“I’m back!” Alex said. A warning to not kick him, as Alex carelessly threw the towels into the truck and began his spider crawl over Yasha’s body.

Yasha grunted once as Alex’s knee landed on his ribs, but didn’t argue or move in the slightest.

“Spider,” Yasha grumbled, too relaxed in the temperature to argue. Alex managed to hide his tired laughter- at some point he had gained the Russian boy’s trust enough to not be viewed as a threat anymore. Who knew that playing with explosives and riding garbage chutes counted as team bonding.

“I got some towels, for the bed and to clean your wrists.” Alex explained, fumbling to tear the cloth with his fingers. After a moment of tugging, he ended up needing to use his teeth to get it started. Yasha snorted at that, opening his eyes halfway.

“No,” Yasha said. A low noise, nearly a murmur. “Water?”

“I don’t have any,” Alex said. “Tomorrow, we can scout out some of the tourist centers and get some. Maybe find a market stall and get some food. But this comes first - I don’t like your wrists, they’re going to get infected.”

Yasha shrugged one shoulder, already dozing. 

Sunset was a relief. It never got near freezing, but it did get cold enough they closed the door and let the cabin air become stuffy with their mixed breath. The windshield and mirrors offered enough visibility that Alex felt comfortable sitting in the driver's seat to take first watch. He’d have to call Smithers at the soonest convenience, seeing if he could maybe get more intel instead of just  _ D’Marcus snoozing in the Galapagos.  _ Alex knew they were to the west, but how far? Which country technically owned them? Alex didn’t want to have to sneak across customs- God knew Yasha would have a difficult time with that, and Alex wasn’t willing to abandon him.

Yasha woke soon after Alex settled into the seat to keep watch, sleeping a surprisingly short amount. He still looked tired, but energized with a cautious gleam that spoke of having to be aware at short notice. Alex wondered if that was why the boy was so small- not sleeping in or ever relaxing.

“I watch,” Yasha said, settling into the driver's seat as he tugged the towel there a bit tighter around him. “Sleep.”

Alex did.

* * *

“Tourist.” Yasha told him, bumping shoulders ever so gently. Alex’s head snapped around, attention landing on a Caucasian man with thick black sunglasses. If the dark tan hadn’t given him away, the shirt did. It wasn’t nearly as thin or as loved as what the locals wore.

“What about him?” Alex asked, already scanning the swarm of pedestrians. They managed to clear some space, generally because the ripe body odour leaking off Alex was enough to murder mosquitoes on contact. The sunlight wasn’t a friend to them- already Yasha’s nose was looking pink with the threat of a painful sunburn. If Alex hadn’t known the pain of peeling skin himself, he may have laughed at Yasha’s suffering.

Yasha looked at him from the corner of his eye, then broke away from his side. The crowd engulfed him, swallowing him up like a happy koi eating watermelon. A second later, Yasha was gone from sight.

Alex kept his eyes locked on the tourist. Yasha had picked him out of the crowd, and Alex wasn’t foolish enough to ignore it even if he didn’t understand why. 

The tourist-  _ target?  _ Towered over the locals by a good dozen centimeters. Alex saw him stagger slightly; pausing and grimacing at the crowd of others, pushing him along in the current of traffic. A moment later Yasha slid to his side, walking beside him as if nothing had happened.

Alex took the silent cue and the two turned off at the next crosswalk, waving in thanks as a diesel car slowed to let them sprint across. In the shaded awning of a corner store, Yasha relieved himself of his prize.

Alex couldn’t help his startled gasp. Latin American music thrummed over a radio, static around the edges. The vendor inside the store ignored them, busy reading a magazine, the side of his face pressed near a buzzing fan.

“This…” Alex pawed open the leather wallet, thick with new money- crisp except for the single crease. Coins too, a surplus as if the owner had little knowledge of their worth. “You stole this?”

“Yes.” Yasha said, leaning against the storefront. The window was blessedly cool, their backs would soon leave sweat marks along the glass. “Easy.”

Alex’s brow furrowed slightly. He didn’t  _ like  _ stealing, but he knew he was good at it. He and Ian used to make a game of it, stealing and swapping items in crowds or on public buses. He hadn’t expected Yasha to be good at it - why would a hired hand need to know how to pickpocket?

The man inside the store finally noticed the sweat marks they were leaving on his glass. He shouted something, sweat beading on his temple as well. 

Yasha grabbed Alex’s arm, dragging him into the store. It wasn’t any cooler, but the shade gave the illusion of relief. The owner squinted at them, leaning into the fan as if it would aid his wet hair.

“Hola,” Yasha garbled at him, accent even worse in Spanish than English. Alex barked a laugh at the sound of it, something that even the store owner found delight in. Rapid-fire Spanish bounced off the walls, Alex able to roughly comprehend some phrases while shaking his head at others. He had learned European Spanish, nothing like this broader-sounding accent, but the man seemed amused by Alex’s own poor attempts to communicate.

Yasha plucked bottles of water, shaking them and squinting at the foreign labels. Alex added smaller things to their collection, a pair of poor looking bananas that were as long as his finger. He pointed behind the counter for a roll of gauze- the man’s eyes caught on Yasha’s bleeding wrists. The shopkeeper pulled a tiny bottle of something clear, the red cross on the front universal to all three of them.

“Gracias,” Alex managed, exchanging some of the creased bills. The man’s eyebrows lifted at the sight of the wallet- obviously not theirs, but the store was small and the radio was on the cusp of dying. The fan did little to cool the small box of a building, and money was money.

They shucked their things into their clothing, pulling up on the bottom hem of their shirts to make makeshift pouches along their bellies. The fresh touch of air on skin soothed them, but sweat followed quickly after. The large bottle of water would help their dry cracked throat, but first they needed to clean out Yasha’s wrists.

A nearby public park was a relieving sight, even in the heat of the day. Tall palm trees did little to make shady cover, and the small flowers along the bottom looked equally dry. A bronze statue nearly  _ radiated  _ heat- distorting the air with visible waves. Alex had no doubt many children had touched its dark surface, only to cry back as it burned their fingers.

“Here,” Alex croaked, pointing to a small park bench. “Wrists.”

Yasha offered them sourly, almost petty in his careful movements. They didn’t have any cotton or wool to dab the wounds with, so Alex tore his shorts (also stolen) along the outer thigh. The cleanest part he had. The antiseptic stung his nose, smelling like vinegar. Yasha’s cheek twitched at the touch, but he didn’t pull his hands back when Alex burst the scabs to clean more thoroughly underneath them. If he didn’t, the skin and scabs would thicken like leather and he’d need a needle or a knife to lance the slough out later.

“You have hand the woman,” Yasha said. He paused, blinking twice before he quickly corrected himself, “you have the hand  _ of  _ woman.”

Alex tried not to smile. Something about Yasha’s persistent efforts to gain fluency touched something deep in him. Those weekends where he woke up to the television on a Spanish channel, when Ian would only talk to him in specific languages and Jack threatened to beat him with a spatula if he didn’t start answering her in English. Those times where they’d struggle to exchange jokes, or find puns across all languages.

_ ‘Where do cat’s go when they die?’  _ Alex remembered joking,  _ ‘purrgatory.’ _

Ian had paused in thought, throwing on the Spanish counterpart.  _ ‘De donde van los gatos cuando mueren? Purgatorio.’ _

They managed to break into fractured French, cackling over  _ purgatorio  _ before Jack threatened to hold their pancakes hostage. Alex missed her.

“I’m trying to be careful,” Alex said, dabbing gently at Yasha’s wrist.

“Bah,” Yasha said, he made a small dismissive movement with his shoulders. “I R- I  _ am  _ Russian. Pour all.”

Well, Alex couldn’t argue with that.

Sloshing careful amounts into the open cuts was significantly more effective than awkwardly dabbing. It made sure he managed to cover everything: where the skin peeled back and where its layers had curled up and away under the heat. Some spots felt leathery and cured, like the Ecuadorian sun had mummified portions of torn skin right on his body. If Alex hadn’t known Yasha would pick at  _ something,  _ he would have pickpocketed a fishing knife and cut the skin right off.

Other areas, where Yasha still bled, looked painful and raw. A shade brighter than steaks in the butcher’s window. Alex bound those areas the tightest, knowing that it wasn’t guaranteed he’d have the ability to change bandages often. The first aid lessons Ian had tattooed on his brain told him that changing bandages was pivotal, but Ian hadn’t really taught him what to do when  _ lost in Ecuador. _

_ ‘No,’  _ Alex thought snappishly,  _ ‘he taught me scuba, stealing cars, and cat puns.’ _

“Good?” Alex asked. Yasha grunted once, squinting into the sun. It would be a good investment to get sunglasses too, but Alex was feeling bone tired and he had a dozen bananas to eat.

They kept walking, passing through the park towards the public beach. It was still early in the day, not too many people had joined the movement of the morning yet. The beach was a huge expanse, a low tide that would slowly draw itself in toward the shore. In some of the pools, formed from the rippling mountains of sand, small urchins crawled along the bottom. They looked like little porcupines, deep purple and black under their reflections. In a few other small pools, little minnows bustled around ragged rocks and swaying underwater plants. An entire octopus pressed itself flat into the shade of an overhang, waiting for the surf to let it flee back to the ocean.

They settled on a crooked rock, coated in sun-baked kelp and sharp little barnacles. The gulls pooled around them, barking out a hungry sound. Yasha barked back, a loud croaking  _ hyaa!  _ He waved his arm dramatically, the gulls flapping back in alarm. Alex shot out a hand to grab at him - any  _ more  _ dramatic movement and Yasha would slide off from the slippery rock into an equally lopsided pile in the sand.

“Hungry bird!” Yasha shouted at them, like it was some great insult. It sounded intimidating in his accent, but the amused light to his eyes sold him out. “Away! My fruit! Away!”

“Technically, it’s  _ my  _ bananas,” Alex said through a laugh. He had full intentions to share.

Yasha snatched one of the small bananas between his fingers, squinting at it. They did look odd, but in a strange new way than what Alex was used to. Less like they’d aged badly in a store bin, more like they had weathered naturally. Peeling them open was an effort in clawing with grubby fingernails. The skin was hard and stringy, mottled between dark brown and softer caramel. The banana’s meat was whiter rather than yellow, and crumbled apart between their fingers like cooked potato, but tasted sweeter than cream.

Yasha looked particularly interested with the fruit, squishing the remnants of peels and fruit into a gross paste as Alex looked in disgust. Neither of them were clean, and the scramble up the rock had left grit and salt ground into their hands. Yasha didn’t seem to mind, licking his fingers clean. It was an objectively gross meal. They laughed anyways, even when sand got between their teeth or when the lukewarm water bottle did little to help their throats. The gulls cried at them throughout the feast, flapping their wings and pecking at one another in petty squabbles. It was strange, relaxing in a bustling world. It made them feel very small.

“Who owns you?” Yasha asked, confidence with English growing stronger by the hour. Even for Alex, who had always been praised for his skill with languages, it was impressive.

Alex swished spit in his mouth, trying to suckle on the last bits of fruit caught in his molars and chewing over the question. From anyone else, at any other time, he would have been insulted. But Yasha asked it so plainly, without any barbs hidden in his tone. And Alex remembered the way he had trembled, stepping out of that dumpster.

“MI6 does, I guess.”

Yasha made a small noise of agreement, and arced into a catlike stretch under the sun. The burn on his nose had spread to his cheeks, catching along the tops of his shoulders where the sleeves had ridden up. A soft pink, growing darker and more defined by the hour.

“Sold,” Yasha said and then shrugged, staring out over the sand and water. Some surfers were beginning to paddle out, fishing boats bobbing further in the distance. They’d be pulling up the nets from last night, rigging more for the sunset. “From, ah, Moscow. Here, to ah…?” 

Yasha tilted his head slightly, lost in thought. Alex peered at him, hating the look of helpless confusion that had returned to his face. 

“To D’Marcus?” Alex asked. Helpfully assisting in what appeared to be Yasha’s slightly twisted memory. “There’s a man here, he’s the one in charge. Alvaro D’Marcus. He’s apparently running some sort of...gig. That’s who I was after.”

Yasha made a noise of confirmation. A surfer in the distance wiped out, rolling in the angry maw of the ocean. Sandpipers chirped along the shore, sprinting on their toothpick legs to outrace the incoming wave. They would sprint back out after, pecking for tiny crustaceans hidden in the pebbles and dirt. The riptide drew them to the surface, where the little birds fed on dainty meat.

“In Moskva,” Yasha said, relaxing slightly as the Russian words ran freely, “I ah,  _ owned  _ by...Vladimir Sharkovsky.”

Yasha paused then, head tilting a little further in contemplation. “When found, I will be killed now.”

Alex jolted, made a noise of instant protest, “no,  _ no.  _ Yasha, you’re not going back to him then. Or getting killed.”

Yasha rolled his shoulders once. He didn’t look at Alex. The gulls were moving on now, recognizing that the boys had nothing left to offer. The salty breeze burned Alex’s eyes. His mouth felt dry in a way that had nothing to do with the rising heat of the morning.

“Can’t you quit? Or...run away?”

“Tried once, twice.” Yasha sounded almost  _ wistful.  _ “I dead now.”

Alex chewed on the sand between his teeth, it crackled against enamel. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make sure you never go back.”

Yasha looked at him from the corner of his eye. His eyes were nearly grey with how bright the sun was over them. His hair washed out, like unbleached silk. His sunburns were a shade off of red, spilled over his skin.

“Yes,” Yasha said. “We make sure.”

* * *

They sheltered inside a tourist center, ignoring the local woman behind the front desk arguing with what appeared to be an Italian couple on vacation. They were fighting over something, leaping between Italian and garbled Spanish. Some words were too different to understand, and the worker was looking stressed.

Yasha paid her no mind. Instead he gravitated towards the wall map plastered to the side of the tourist center. At one point the writing had been crisp, but humidity and heat had caused the corners to curl back slightly and the ink to feather out into the paper. There were pins, little things with bright coloured caps. A decorative sign asking guests to pin where you were from, so the center could trace their visitors from all over the world.

Alex instantly went to the drinking fountain, refilling their one bottle of water. They would likely sit on the steps outside, taking turns chugging from the thin plastic until they had their fill. Alex snatched a few other brochures, smaller things like the fishing tours and charters that mapped the nearest marinas. All useful information for getting around. It made him feel better to have even the pretense of direction, stranded in a foreign country with no money and a stolen companion.

“Alex,” Yasha murmured, quiet and bland. Alex came over, eying the decorative wall with a small smile.

“I know these,” Alex said, “when I traveled when I was younger, they had these in every tourist station. My Uncle would pick a spot and we’d pretend to be from there for the day.” Even knowing the truth about Ian, the memory felt warm. Taking on identities and new pasts for fun, reveling in fooling the people around them who never questioned Jacob and Luis, from Mannheim. Innocent fun at the time, and something that had saved Alex more than he wanted to admit, ever since.

Yasha’s eyes traced the various countries, the burst fabric seams around the famous cities and capitals.  _ Paris. London. Glasgow. Toronto.  _ The stitching along  _ New York  _ had been pulled so thin by needles it sagged away from its frame.

“Where are you from, Alex?” Yasha asked quietly. 

Alex picked a pin, a dull blue. He had to lean on his tiptoes to pierce the area he had grown up in. Sliding it in next to dozens of other needles. It sunk into cork, forever trapped there.

“Where are you from, Yasha?” Alex asked in turn.

Yasha moved much more unsure, pulling a bright yellow pin which made his skin seem sickly in contrast. His eyes flickered over Russia, the scattering of pins all located in big cities. He hesitated, pausing as he stared at the cheap cloth map in a nameless tourist center around the world.

Instead of piercing the city of Moscow, Yasha trailed one finger along the fabric before poking somewhere more to the west. Somehow his little yellow pin stuck out more than the dozens of rainbows standing around the capital city.

“Not Moscow?” Alex asked curiously. Yasha shook his head, lips curled into a wordless snarl, impossible to decipher. Alex eyed him carefully, and let the subject die.

Alex pointed to where they were, the little star of northern Ecuador. Yasha froze, staring at the location. An ocean away, an entire equator between them and Russia. They weren't on the same side of the world anymore.

Yasha’s eyes flickered over the shapes of the countries around them, mouthing something quietly to himself in Russian. Alex realized that they were the Russian versions of the names- different variants of the countries.  _ Braziliya,  _ for Brazil.  _ Sal'vador  _ for El Salvador. 

“ _ Ekvador? _ ” Yasha asked, fingers trailing over the map to the English name of Ecuador's capital, Quito. “ _ Kito?” _

Yasha exhaled in a rush, eyes wide and alarmed as he stared at the little map. The name for where they were, Manta, was strikingly obvious to the Russian. A different alphabet, a different life.

“Don’t hurt yourself there,” Alex teased, patting Yasha’s shoulder.

Yasha flinched in alarm, one hand flickering up to his face as the other curled into the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck. He grimaced with a small wet noise- his nose was starting to leak blood. Yasha took a hurried step away from the map, already blood managed to drip lewdly to splatter on the sun baked flooring of the tourist center.

“Shit,” Alex hissed, glancing around as Yasha stared mystified at the blood dripping from his nose. Bright red on his fingers from where he touched his face. Ironic given their earlier care of his wrists, but still annoying. Bloody noses were always a pain to deal with. The employee looked simultaneously relieved to have an excuse to leave the Italian couple, and unsettled by Yasha’s blood smearing on her floor.

“ _ Baño?”  _ Alex tried, stressing the constant in his slight distraction. She pointed wordlessly to a door behind a small table covered in advertisements for a local zoo. Alex hauled Yasha through the door, moving immediately towards the sink. The water wouldn’t be safe to drink- Alex had learned that lesson the hard way, but he had already filled the water bottle at the drinking fountain.

“Sit,” Alex pointed to the counter, eyes flickering to the stalls. They were alone. Running on instinct, he flipped the lock on the door, not wanting anyone to walk in on them.

Yasha sat obediently on the counter, pinching the bridge of his nose while the other hand kneaded the skin of his temple. He had closed his eyes tightly, the impression of pain from the tense wrinkle between his brows.

“I’m going to clean you up.” Alex muttered, thankful that the washroom was well stocked enough to have spare toilet paper beneath the sinks. He dabbed at Yasha’s face, absorbing the blood easily in the single ply. It turned red, staining Alex’s fingertips like a broken ketchup container. “I thought I told you not to think too hard? Or were you just waiting to bloody prove me wrong?”

Yasha managed one pained glare of annoyance at the pun. His eyes were watering, glazed slightly from the onslaught of sensation. Alex bit at the inside of his lip, trying not to look worried. He’d watched Yasha pour liquor over open cuts without half the reaction he was showing now. Usually nosebleeds didn’t hurt this much.

The blood slowed after a while, but Yasha kept staring at the wall. The other hand rubbed at his temple. Some unknown thought twisted his lip into a tighter frown.

“You okay now?” Alex asked, passing the water over. Yasha swished it, spitting out pink slimy water from between his teeth. The clots were long and dark, resembling black slugs that slid down the plumbing.

“Da,” Yasha murmured, voice quieter than before. “Let’s go.”

Yasha hopped down, a bit shakily but still able to walk. Alex paused before following after, giving a small apologetic wave to the aggrieved worker, now alone in the main room.

Yasha didn’t look at her.

They managed their way out in traffic, sticking under the awnings. A few bowls of water were set out near the posts, dead flies floating on the surface. The stray cats that were a part of every crowded city lapped at that water, finding the lukewarm temperature more appealing than the rain barrels running dry or oily puddles on the road. The occasional dog stared at them, thin and curious but not suffering like inland cities. They could scavenge, eating the fish that washed ashore with the tide.

Rollerbladers skated past, weaving between the occasional mother of two. Tourist were splattered between, shouting in amazement at the tuna boats on the horizon. Their large gaudy cameras, snapping pictures of the surf and sea. Yasha scoffed at them, nose still snotty due to the blood clots smeared on his face. There was only so clean that Alex could get him with toilet paper and tap water. 

Yasha stumbled away from Alex and bumped into one extravagantly outfitted woman- this time Alex’s sharp eye caught Yasha’s movements. His thin fingers twisted and curled to snatch up the contents of her purse, tucking them under his palm as they kept walking at a casual pace. The woman faded into the crowd behind them, still occupied with the store windows/

“You’re not bad at that.” Alex said. “How much do you think you can get?”

Yasha’s eyes drifted to Alex, observing him calmly, something competitive glimmering in his gaze. Alex would have missed it, except for how familiar it felt.

“Don’t get caught, Hamburgor-boy.”

Alex made a small offended noise, and waited for his chance to prove Yasha wrong. His opportunity came quickly - a group of older boys, loud and chattering in English. Probably college students on vacation. He brushed past one of them, sneaking what felt like a small clip of bills from a back pocket. Alex slid them into his shorts, flashing the stack to Yasha quickly in a surge of competitive smugness.

Yasha’s smile turned shark-like, exhilarated.

Alex couldn’t imagine this sort of game with Tom. Tom, who thought of games as sports and playing as the clamor of padding and shoulders on one another. Who thought his missions sounded thrilling more than dangerous, like stories that weren’t quite real. Alex could  _ see  _ the gobsmacked expression of his friend if he’d suggested a round of pick-pocketing - Tom would be amazed and slightly nervous at Alex’s daring, happy enough to watch, laughing and guilty all at once. Unwilling to participate.  _ Unable  _ to participate, even if he’d wanted to. Alex would never ask his best friend to risk being grabbed by an angry mark or getting in trouble with the police in the first place. These games had died with Ian, and even then they had been more carefully controlled than casual thievery. Alex could feel the disapproving frown Jack would throw towards him if she could see him now. She wouldn’t ever approve of him...stealing from tourists on vacation. People who’d done nothing wrong but trusted the world around them.

Yasha though, with his nasal voice and blood stained teeth looked ready to  _ live,  _ and for once Alex felt his blood thrum in a situation that wasn’t life or death.

“I’m not the one with bloody small fingers, you babushka,” Alex taunted back. A current of giddiness under his skin.

Yasha  _ laughed. _

* * *

__

The bleeding from Yasha’s nose started again as sunset began to fall. The boy keeled over suddenly, hands gripping his temples with a grimace. The blood dripped freely from his face, staining the sidewalk with little red teardrops.

“Bloody hell, mate.” Alex said. He bent over making sure that nothing serious had happened- although he couldn’t imagine the boy breaking his nose spontaneously like that. Yasha made a low gruff noise, maybe in agreement. He rubbed temples in small circles, face screwed up in pain.

“Come on, you,” Alex grunted, slinging one of Yasha’s arms over his shoulder. This was as clear a sign as anything that their day was over. They were a fair walk still back to the truck, but there were several small shops set up along the street still. Most had closed, but the Manta nightlife kindled hot and bright like a star. It was the quiet hush between the bustle of the day’s business and the beginning of evening’s relaxation. The grocery stores were closed but a few fancy bars sang music out into the night. Purple and violet lights danced as bass thrummed like a puma’s growl.

The bouncer took one glimpse at Yasha before he was shouting loudly inside, calling  _ “hielo, hielo!” _ and asking for one of the staff by name. Alex waved thanks as someone else - the other employee - returned with a small plastic bag of ice. The ice was in small decorative flower designs, likely meant for drinks. Instead, Yasha pressed it against the top of his nose, nearly moaning at the sweet relief. 

“Spasibo.” Yasha croaked out from red teeth, ice roses curled around the hollows of his eyes. “Hurts.” Yasha then devolved into something very Russian, and then into goans that would be difficult to comprehend in any language.

“What?” Alex asked, guiding Yasha to a park bench. Yasha opened one watery eye, breathing open mouthed like a catfish. Drops from the melting ice mixed with the blood from his nose, covering his face with a thin pink sheen. Small droplets kept hitting Alex as Yasha spoke.

“Bilni.” Yasha garbled, “is ah, flat pour...bread? Saying,  _ first blini always blob.” _

Alex didn’t understand, but a blini sounded really damn good right then. It was a long time since their feast of bananas that morning, and he and Yasha had reached the unspoken agreement that the money they stole was to be carefully spent. Dinner would be worth dipping into their fund - they needed food and to get back to their truck. 

“If you stay here, I can run around and look for a Blobini,” Alex offered.

“ _ Blini.”  _ Yasha corrected, annoyed, “bah, go go. Headache too, find vodka.”

“Vodka won’t cure a headache.”

“ _ Bah,  _ you know nothing,” Yasha said, sniffling down the snot and blood. “Go go, get me something to drink.”

Alex did  _ not  _ get him something to drink.

* * *

“Where the hell did you find this?” Alex balked, running one hand through his sweat damp hair and trying to drag his brain into wakefulness. Sunrise on an island was cool, but it wouldn’t be long until they were all suffocating under the summer heat once again. 

Yasha hoisted the glass bottle victoriously. It wasn’t vodka, but it was clear. Likely tequila, rum was more rare in this area of the world. Tequila though, that bred in the windows and street cars on every corner.

“Around,” Yasha said. “Up, up. You get me bread, you get drink.”

“That’s not how this is supposed to work.” Alex complained, searching for his shoes. “You  _ bastard,  _ did you take my boots too?”

“Da.”

“Oh bloody hell, they’re  _ soaked.  _ What, did you fall in the ocean with them too?”

“...da.”

Alex groaned, fingers grabbing for the tequila. Yasha fought him off, throwing one of his waterlogged boots at him. It squelched, stinking of salt.

“Oh for fuck’s sake…” Alex cursed, jamming his bare foot inside. The water made everything that much worse.

“Stepped on jellyfish,” Yasha said, “don’t touch bottom.”

Alex couldn’t fathom why on earth Yasha was out strolling the night away with his boots, or where he had found a nearly full bottle of tequila and how he had somehow  _ stepped in  _ the ocean. Alex would have argued further, but one glimpse of morning light and he could tell something wasn’t right. Something about the way Yasha was carrying himself, or the faint weariness to his frame. There was a minute tremor there, a sheen of sweat that seemed out of place with the cool air of dawn. 

Alex sat up quickly, finding something very uncomfortably off with Yasha’s disturbed state. He wasn’t...Yasha was hiding something. Alex was as sure of it as anything.

“What did you do?” Alex asked, dead serious. Yasha didn’t respond.

“Yasha, what did you  _ do?” _

“Nothing.”

Alex frowned and skimmed his eyes over Yasha’s frame. He looked worse than yesterday, sickly. 

“Okay, stay here. How much money do we have left?” Alex asked. Yasha coughed up what he had, the coins and bills they had scrounge up from various unassuming tourists. The people who had enough money to spare. It wasn’t a lot- but Alex could make it stretch. The hardest part was finding what they needed when they couldn’t read the labels or the boxes. It was going to be a pain.

“I’m going to run to the pharmacy- the uh, medic? Medicine?”

“I know medicine, hamburgor boy.” Yasha grumbled, leaning back to rest his head against the headrest. Alex felt more dread curl in his stomach, that Yasha needed something more than what he would be able to provide. Alex didn’t have enough confidence to fool a Doctor with whatever cover story they might use. 

“No ah…” Yasha paused, staring distantly over the headrest at the boring wall of the sleeping cab. “...head, hurt pills.”

Yasha swayed slightly, closing his eyes with a soft exhale as he leant back against the wall. Something about him felt weakened, restrained in his usual expressions. The headache must be bad.

“Headache, on it.” Alex nodded, ignoring the squelching as he laced his boots. He’d have to find a new pair of shoes, Smithers’ creations be damned. It wasn’t like he could use the gadgets right now anyways. He wasn’t getting swampfoot, that would be a rather messy situation.

“Oh.” Alex said, looking at Yasha sharply. “Give me your hand.”

Yasha smiled. Thin and pained; he didn’t open his eyes.

“ _ Right. _ ” Alex exhaled in a rush. “I’ll get more bandages then, you have the tequila for disinfecting, yeah? I’ll get some water and some food and painkillers. You sure you’re going to be alright here?”

Yasha managed one withering look before he slipped into the towel blanket nest in the back pointedly. Alex rolled his eyes and slammed the truck door shut. 

“Dealing with you is tire-some!” Alex shouted.

“Get your sissy boots!” Yasha shouted back, voice garbled through the metal.

Alex did return, depleting all the money they had. He dragged Yasha out into the sunlight, out towards the main boardwalk. The smell of the sea calmed Yasha partially, the cawing of the gulls similar to most cities. The heat was bad, but nothing could be done about that.

Yasha threw back two of the red pills without blinking, already scrunching his eyes closed in distress.They really should have gotten sunglasses, the sunlight was probably making his sickness induced photophobia worse. Alex had made sure he bought enough painkillers to last them a while, but he didn’t want to poison Yasha’s liver while trying to help him.

Yasha’s wrists were garish when Alex took the bandages off, red and sore in some spots while others seemed moist with clear slime. Other segments, where the rope had bit deepest, had a strange yellow thickness around it. It reminded Alex of a lemon tart, without the meringue. Areas of skin that had been kept under wraps had long since turned white, looking dead like the pork slabs they sold in windows. It would need to be cut off, but not now.

“This isn’t looking good,” Alex said.  He knew it was useless to dab, that the slough was deep and although it wouldn’t impede with Yasha’s hand’s abilities, too long like this could be a major health concern. If Yasha didn’t have a fever now, he would by night. Bacteria always tried to bite deep, so raising the body temperature made the bacteria fall apart. It was a shame, that the body tended to crumble as well.

“Obviously,” Yasha grunted, pinky twitching as Alex used the cleanest bit of the dirty bandages to try and smear off some of the filth. It was runny, like melted butter but all the wrong colour. It stunk too.

“Okay, so…” Alex sighed, setting their scarce few belongings into the cloth bag made from the one towel they brought with. “I’m thinking, you go wash in the water.”

Yasha looked at him flatly. “With the jellyfish.”

Alex tried not to laugh. Instead, he nodded slowly. “Yeah, with the jellyfish.”

It was funny in an abstract way. Yasha had already taken his boots, stomped around in them overnight. Somehow Yasha acquired a bottle of booze and already _ had  _ stomped on jellyfish. 

“In you go,” Alex shooed Yasha toward the water, ignoring the steadily increasing glare, “off you trot. Don’t make me get a broom and chase you in.”

Yasha grumbled and slid off his shoes- more like carefully tied rags which further emphasized why he had stolen Alex’s boots. Yasha wiggled his toes in the daylight. The nails were long and curling under each digit or torn off raggedly at the quick. His pinky toes were set wider apart than Alex’s own. Alex supposed it was due to shoe size- either Yasha had never worn shoes that fit him snug enough to shift his pinky, or he hadn’t the resources to wear anything but a size too large. Considering the length of the splintering curling nails, Alex was willing to bet that foot hygiene and shoes were not easily acquired where he was from.

“Into the sea. You stink.” Alex pushed him gently, tapping him firmly on the flank like one might stir a horse. Yasha didn’t seem ignorant of the inspiration for the gesture, he did snort more equine than normal and tried to send a kick in Alex’s direction.

Yasha waded out, pulling his pant legs high around his thighs. Said thighs were equally milky pale. Alex tried to suffocate the surging wave of frustration and hate for whoever had done such a thing to Yasha. To treat him so cruelly was….unheard of. Tom would have combusted or gone insane if he wasn’t permitted to go outside- God knows he was pissy enough after a week in bed due to the flu. Alex couldn’t imagine it, living...years? Years in trapped captivity, held in darkness and servitude you couldn’t escape from. Two attempts to escape, Yasha had said. Alex didn’t want to think about how harsh the punishment must have been to scare him off making a third. 

Yasha shouted something, his words swallowed by the faint breeze and rumbling purr of the ocean. He swatted at the waves, splashing salty water as fish darted away. The water would be cool, a welcome relief to the sticky air.

Alex would need to do something. He didn’t want Yasha to return to the...asshole he referenced on occasion, in those smaller moments that passed between them when the city turned neon after hours. Alex didn’t want Yasha to be stuck  _ here  _ either, which meant that Alex would have to find some sort of compromise. He was fairly sure that Yasha’s identity would be gone as well, removed from all records. He was a ghost, but one Alex was determined to take with him.

He didn’t want MI6 taking him- they had already fucked over Alex enough, they didn’t need another teenager. He’d need to get Yasha out of the country, maybe somewhere like Italy where he could hide away on the water. It wasn’t ideal, but obviously he could take care of himself if he had to. But before that, Alex needed to deal with the evil villain summit or whatever MI6 was calling it. Mission details, as always, had been sparse. All Alex knew right now was that he had to deal with the organizer,  Alvaro D’Marcus, who was more than likely hiding out on the Galapagos Islands after his exhibition had gone up in flames. Yasha said that Yassen was there, which made everything that much worse. No matter how impressive Yasha was at pickpocketing tourist, Alex had no doubts the boy wouldn’t last a second against Yassen. The kid didn’t have the weird “Rider Luck” (it should be trademarked by now, honestly) which somehow made the Russian assassin willing to  _ not  _ kill Alex. 

Alex didn’t want to have to bury Yasha in the sand. He didn’t know what to do.

“-lex!” Yasha shouted, faint under the roar of waves. Gulls screamed, swooping along the shore and little sandpipers sprinted in search of snails. Yasha waved, knee deep in the water. His hands dripping water and wrists a mangled contrast to his skin.

Alex couldn't hear, so he set his things down and rolled up his own trouser legs. He waded through the water, carefully stepping to avoid the sharp oyster shells that washed in from rougher weather.

He approached Yasha, paying attention to the sores. Maybe the saltwater had been a bad idea, after all. Alex ignored the gleam in the boy’s eye, the subtle twist of mischief, too focused with worry. 

Yasha struck.

Alex screamed, affronted, as he was thrown bodily into the water. He clambered back to his feet, soaked. Salt clinging to his skin, burning his eyes. It kissed his mouth, leaving him hacking up sea water as Yasha laughed at him bodily. Fish swam between them, curious over the action.

“How dare you!” Alex screeched, feeling water twirl over his throat and sand burrow between his toes, “you’re going to get it now!”

Yasha yelped as Alex slammed into him- a rugby tackle Tom had shown him years ago rather than anything meant to hurt. They splashed, flapping uselessly like the gulls on the beach; they laughed like the children in the park, picking out ice cream and throwing pennies into fountains.

For a moment, Alex forgot the world, and the world forgot him.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was surprisingly fun to write. Especially considering I have nearly no idea what's going on at any point in time.  
> Honestly, writing for an absurdly small fandom and screaming at a handful of people around the world is much more intimate and heartwarming than a few of the larger fandoms. I really enjoy you all, and I'm really happy I stumbled into this tar pit of a timeline.  
> Couldn't have done it all without you throwing your ideas at me, and thanks to galimau/Ahuuda because she's the one that grabbed my ankle, spun into a death spiral, and refuses to let go. Someone get me a doctor, I think I've gotten gangrene for this fandom.  
> I truly do hope you all enjoy, it seems that this little corner of the internet hasn't had this sort of story before.   
> I hope to make something special for you all. ~ Kae (Oceanbreeze7)


End file.
